


six times you wanted to kiss him

by dictura



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Let Sakamoto Ryuji Say Fuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dictura/pseuds/dictura
Summary: You didn't know you had a type, but then you moved to Tokyo and met one vulgar boy. (Pegoryu, second person POV.)
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	six times you wanted to kiss him

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Persona 5 Royal but I still wrote this in the vanilla timeline, for no real reason. Bless this ship. #letryujisayfuck

You’d never kissed a boy before you came to Tokyo. You wanted to—a few times. But if anyone else at school felt the same way, you couldn’t tell. And anyway, you were used to being who you were—quiet. Obedient. Underwhelming. Your conservative parents’ ideal heir, until you weren’t. Until everyone you’d ever spoken to in your small town stopped talking back.

You might have a soft spot for the vulgar boy the first time he talks to you. So he looks like a total delinquent—and you don’t think that’s your type, although that’s not a thing you ever got to figure out—but it’s been so long since anyone _wanted_ to talk to you. But Ryuji—he clearly wants to win you over. And even before you were a criminal, no one else was really interested in what you thought. (Before you were a criminal, you were boring. This is not something you will ever tell him.)

But up until the moment he gets to his feet, ripping a silver skull mask from his face, it doesn’t occur to you that maybe you want to kiss _this_ boy in particular. Maybe not even because he’s saving your life at the moment (although he is, for the first time, and definitely not the last). But that grin on his face, when he says he’s ready to face the man who ruined everything in his life—

You have a type. You’ve figured it out.

Despite the fact that you now train together, you’ve tried to avoid the fact of Ryuji’s body. His was stronger than yours to start with—you were an introverted nerd in your past life; he’s a former track star—and now with running again, his nightly push-ups, and all the trips to the gym, it’s difficult not to notice the definition building in his legs, his arms. And of course Ryuji’s the type to ditch sleeves entirely in warm weather.

That’s who you have this _ridiculous_ crush on, you remind yourself. A total show-off. And yet, somehow, no matter how many times Morgana reminds you how loud, reckless, or oblivious your new best friend is, you still really, really like looking at his arms. So you don’t. Mostly.

(Mona catches you out at it anyway, but he writes it off as jealousy. Good for your sanity, bad for its impact on your ceiling pull-up training. The cat is a taskmaster.)

You try not to change at the same time when you work out, either, and more or less you’ve found ways around it—found ways to distract yourself from the very real fact that this guy you’re attracted to is becoming progressively _more_ attractive. It’s something you were pretty proud of accomplishing, until of course all your friends sat around, had a heart-to-heart over hot pot, and decided that three of you would top the day off by getting naked together.

Which—you like the bathhouse. Even when that old guy on the weekends is fiddling with the taps. But the bathhouse with Ryuji? That sounds—impossible. But you don’t have a great way of dissuading them from it without dropping a way bigger bombshell than your “criminal” past, so you go. And make very emphatic eye contact. And you pride yourself on holding that, or averting your eyes strategically, and you probably seem alternately very aggressive and extremely cagey but you tell Ryuji what you think he expects you to say: Ann _is_ gorgeous. (It just doesn’t matter to you in the slightest.)

But the gossip about girls deflects from the real matter at hand: not looking. Even though keeping your eyes entirely above the waterline means—Ryuji’s shoulders. Those are some very good shoulders. And the flush on his face as the water gets hotter?

Well, you want to kiss him, for real. But you let Ryuji and Yusuke get out of the bath first and try to boil away the rest of what you want.

When Kamoshida took over the track team, Ryuji lost everything. His friends. The incredible talent that made him special, noticed. The dream of making a better life for himself and his mother. Any privacy he might have had about his past. The respect of his teachers and classmates. All of it—gone with the rubber-band snap of his temper stretched too thin, of the abuse dragged on too long; gone with the brittle snap of his leg in “self-defense.”

You can still outrun him— _you_ can, and before this, you never trained a day in your life.

So when he says to you he’s finally found somewhere he fits in—with _you_ —it’s hard not to lean directly over the wreckage of your monja and kiss him. You don’t do it—but it’s harder than Makoto’s exam review.

“I agree,” you manage instead.

“Heh, don’t worry, man. There’s a place here for you too. Right next to me…or maybe ahead? Something like that.”

For a while now, you’ve felt yourself stretch thin—your desire for this boy versus all common sense; how much you think about him weighed against how bad it is to be so hopeless over a straight guy you met a few months ago. You’ve wanted so badly _not_ to want him that you’ve run yourself in circles trying to think of ways to achieve it.

But you’ve never been _wanted_ like this. And it’s not the way you want to be wanted by him, but—you can imagine worse ways to let your heart break.

You’ll run alongside him for as long as he’ll let you. You’ll run alongside him until he’s faster again. You’ll run after him—forever, even.

For now, you’ll settle for paying the bill. You have a crush on a boy who always forgets his wallet. (Between him and Yusuke, you’re about to be bankrupt.)

He falls asleep on Mishima’s shoulder instead of yours, because of course he does. (And he snores. Which is somehow endearing. Which makes you imagine him snoring next to you in an attic bed—it’s almost a blessing you can’t room with him, because that snoring would keep you up. And not because it sounds like an engine desperate to start.)

But he turns up in your room anyway—at least Ann does, too. You haven’t said anything to her yet, but she’s been around almost from the beginning, and you know she’s caught you looking a little bit too long. So when she asks what kind of person Ryuji would like—she says _person_ , and you immediately look up at her across the room. She must know. Right?

Ryuji leads with “she.” Of course he does. But you could be modest, you figure. You know you’re nice, at least to your friends—especially to him. You’re just—not a girl.

(And you’ll never be hotter to Ryuji than any girl. You get that.)

“So come on, spill the beans, Akira. What kind of girl is your type?”

Maybe she doesn’t know. “I don’t have a type.”

Ryuji groans. “You totally dodged the question!”

You swallow, wet your lips, glance across the room over Ryuji’s head at Ann. “I don’t have a type—of girl, I guess.”

The room momentarily pauses, both of your friends frozen in place. But then Ann says, “Obviously, or she’d be all over you already.”

Of course Ann—the kindest and most unfairly gorgeous girl you’ve ever met—can spin your coming out into a compliment. Which makes it easy to fire back, “Or I would’ve asked you out already.”

“Obviously.”

“So…” Ryuji says, and it comes out a little hoarse. “What, uh, kind of guy is your type?”

The attempt at normalcy makes you want to roll off the sofa and kiss him, even though answering the question has you avoiding looking in his direction. You fixate on the light around Ann’s shape, where her head is inclined to hear you out—curious.

“I guess I’d like someone…honest. Someone fun, who I could laugh with.”

Ryuji turns towards you, the faint glow of phone screens and moonlight through the hotel room window the only illumination on his face. “You mean like—”

The sound of Mishima vomiting drowns out the moment, and you never get back to it. By the time you clean him up and get to sleep, no one has the energy to ask what you meant.

Ryuji’s snoring keeps you up, though.

The version of Ryuji that stammers and gets stage fright when he’s asked about his personal life? It’s on your list: an ever-growing list of blond delinquents you find it very difficult not to kiss. Ryuji, you remind yourself, is interested in girls, and to such an extent that it sometimes seems that any one of them would do, so surely, if he had any inkling of settling for anyone else, you would know by now.

But still. When he blushes? You definitely want to kiss him, which you tell yourself is fine: the important part is that you never do.

However, that distraction aside, he’s absolutely drowning on stage. So you yell, “You have a girlfriend?!” (You may be incredibly gay for your best friend—but, you figure, you can still try to wingman.)

This has the unintended effect of putting you on stage, but you’re fine with it—until the announcer asks you what you’d like to confess. And you absolutely know who you’d like to confess to, but you absolutely can’t.

So instead, you holler, “I love you, Ann Takamaki!”

(She forgives you eventually, over crepes. You tell her what you wanted to say. She already knows.)

“Dude, why would you yell that?” Ryuji asks afterwards, at the safety of the school gate.

You shrug. “I was in the moment.”

“But like, aren’t you—”

“Not in love with Ann?”

“Well, _yeah_.”

“Is the point of student sharing to be honest?”

“Nah, but I thought you—liked honesty, and shit.” Ryuji gives you a sideways glance at this, and for once, you can’t read his expression.

You let a bit of Joker slip into your grin. “In other guys, sure. Doesn’t mean _I_ have to be honest.”

Ryuji scoffs, but you can see that flash in his eyes that means he’s about to play along. “Don’t tell me you’re already cheatin’ on all of your boyfriends.”

“I would only ever cheat on my fake girlfriend. My boyfriends are non-existent.”

“Aren’t you, like, always in Shinjuku? I thought you’d have at least six dudes by now!”

You can’t help but preen on the inside at the idea that Ryuji pictures you with a harem of guys. “Alas, the only person who flirts with me there is a drunk reporter, who is both older and female.”

“Huh.” He scratches the side of the jaw. “And all those part-time jobs and shit—you really haven’t, like—noticed anyone?”

“I think the airsoft shop is just _not_ the hub of hot guys you’re picturing.”

“Someone at school, maybe?”

You frown. This is much easier to joke about when the focus stays far, far away from your real object of interest. Who is right in front of you. And far too interested. “Why the sudden fascination with my love life?”

Ryuji rubs the back of his neck. “Ah—I don’t know, man. I got nothin’ going on, but I figured you’re cooler than me, so…”

“I assure you, I also have no game.”

“Hey, I have _plenty_ of game! Just because I’ve never dated anyone—”

“You can’t have game if you’ve never played.”

Ryuji groans. “Savage, dude. But seriously. Someone in your class…?”

“Despite Mishima’s best attempts to take me to Dome Town, I’ve had to tell him my heart belongs to another.”

Ryuji snorts. “What, Ann?”

“Akechi.”

It’s not just that you’d like someone you can laugh with, you think. You like the way Ryuji laughs—bent back, his arms clutching his chest like his insides are falling out.

“Man, tell me you don’t find that dick attractive…”

You look over at Ryuji with your best serious expression. “We’ve never seen his dick, Ryuji. I can’t know that.”

Ryuji’s busy sputtering and turning beet red, so you continue, “Besides, I think I’ve established in public that gentlemen prefer blondes.”

“Y-yeah…” It looks almost as if all of Ryuji’s visible skin is flushed, and he’s rubbing furiously at the back of his neck.

You can’t tell if he’s about to bust out laughing or spontaneously combust—if he’s caught out your flirtation or if his mind is spinning with the mental image of your rival’s other lightsaber. So it seems like the right time for, “Hey, race you to the station?”

You take off before he can respond, but you let him catch up, and he’s grinning when he does. You don’t have to be honest—as long as he’ll let you run alongside him.

You emerge in reality and you’re not sure there’s blood in your body.

The last thing you saw was an explosion. Him falling. He smiled at you before he fell.

The last thing you heard was Ann screaming.

Your friends are talking around you. Futaba has started crying. You should hold her—you can’t stand when she’s upset. But you’re not sure your brain is sending signals to your limbs.

All those times you didn’t kiss him. Because you thought—if you held it in, this huge, ridiculous, inescapable crush—

This _love_ for him. The best friend who saved you again. And again. All of you, this time.

—you thought if you were quiet, you could keep him. Have a place next to him—going forward. Forever.

Ann has joined in the crying—a chorus of wails. You promise yourself every time you see her cry about Shiho you’ll never let anyone hurt her like this again, but now... Are your eyes open? Your vision is blurring.

And then, you hear his voice.

“Maaan, that was close…”

Your friends circle around him, and suddenly there’s air in your lungs, in the world again, and you step forward and grab him by the shoulders, because that’s the only way to know.

He’s solid. He’s real.

“Didn’t you…die?” Haru asks, eyes wide.

“Ain’t I alive?” Ryuji looks at you as if to confirm.

You move in slowly, examining his face, your hands trailing down the arms of his blazer. They’re still arms. Still attached. You can see him clearly now, almost. You’re crying, you realize.

“You can’t ever scare me like that again,” you say. You only mean to say it to him, but it comes out low and resonant. More Joker’s voice than yours.

“I-I won’t.” Ryuji swallows hard. He puts a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, man…”

Your hands trail up, reach for his face. You feel your forehead knock gently into his before you realize you’re doing it. You’re tracing his jaw now. His nose is touching yours.

“I just—I got blasted out from the explosion, and when I woke up, I was lyin’ on the grass. I didn’t—”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

Are you having an out of body experience? Did you just say that out loud? But Ryuji doesn’t move away. You slowly reel back, focus your eyes on his face. He’s beet red, but he leans his forehead back into yours. Were his hands always on your back? His arms are firm around you. Is he…waiting?

You move your mouth towards his, and he’s—not moving an inch. Are his fingers digging into your blazer? You’re sharing the same breath now, and—

—he kisses you.

It’s a quick kiss, and when he steps back, he’s beet red again. But that grin you know so well—it’s all over his face. “Race you for it?”

You grab his jaw again, and when you come up to breathe, it’s only because Makoto is aggressively clearing her throat. Futaba is filming, Yusuke has you framed in his fingers, Ann throws out a “took you long enough!”, and Haru is giggling.

“You owe me fatty tuna, Futaba,” Morgana is saying, “and also, you two, _gross_.”

“I think it’s romantic,” Haru chimes in.

“What did you bet?” Ann asks.

Morgana looks smug. “I bet Ryuji would kiss him first.”

“You sure showed me,” Futaba says to Ryuji, and then she points at you in accusation. “Way to fail me utterly, by the way.”

You want to come up with a coherent, indignant response to this, but your friends have started wandering towards the station, and Ryuji takes your hand like it’s nothing, and—you have no idea what to say about that.

“Ryuji does tend to be the most proactive of our group,” Makoto adds, “even if he is a bit reckless.”

“Kissing Akira was a safe bet,” Ann observes. “He’s been crazy about Ryuji since—”

You send Ann a desperate look over your shoulder, and she relents. “Since when?” Ryuji prompts, your hand swinging in his. The cocky grin on his face is usually reserved for when he’s just downed a Shadow, and you can feel your face starting to burn.

“That’s a good topic of conversation for a first date,” says Yusuke, to the rescue. “Maybe you could try those swan boats at the park. I remember that you had wanted to bring someone special, Akira.”

Haru is walking backwards ahead of them, looking back and forth and beaming. “That’s so cute!”

“It’s not, but yes, have a date far, far away from us,” Morgana agrees.

“Aw,” Futaba whines, “but they’re just like that anime with the—”

Morgana groans. “Please don’t tell me you ‘ship’ these two.”

“Friends to lovers is my _trooope_!”

You look at Ryuji and you feel the heat rising to your face again. He’s slinging his free hand across the back of his neck, sheepish. But he looks back up at you and grins that shit-eating grin.

You want to ask when he knew—you want to ask why he didn’t say anything. You want to tell him how that ramen bowl sat on your shelf before anything else, when your new life looked so difficult, and that you’re actually very good at Star Forneus. You want to tell him you would’ve kissed him a thousand times before now if you’d thought there was the remote chance that he would still grin at you, just like this.

Mostly, you want to kiss him again, but the snow is falling, and it’s Christmas Eve, and everyone needs to go home. You’re too bewildered, too absolutely, fundamentally altered to get on a train right now, and so there are plans for tomorrow, hugs goodbye, with his the last and lingering.

“I gotta get back to my mom,” he says, and he’s flushed as he lets you go. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

You nod, and then he’s gone, and then it’s nothing but a darkening sky with flakes falling, and everything—worked out. You got everything you wanted.

And then Sae comes, and there’s no way you can say no.

(When Ryuji calls, you don’t have the heart to tell him. So you ask about his dinner with his mom. You tell him about Futaba and her miraculous turkey. And—you tell him you can plan your date tomorrow. Only you know tomorrow, for the two of you, will never come.)

When you get back, he runs to you first. Of course he does.

You know you don’t deserve it—not after not telling him you were turning yourself in for Christmas. And not after you took so long—are taking so long—to tell him what you feel about him. (Not after he had to kiss you first.) But he throws his arms around you anyway, and he’s here and he’s real and he doesn’t hate you, and you can let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding for months.

It’s so good to be back, so good to have real food on your plate and the people you love around you, that there’s hardly time to think about what it is you’ll say, how you can possibly start to make it right. And tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, because of course it is.

Sojiro has you working the café for the day—he’s gruff when he asks, but you can tell when you get behind the counter that he’s just glad to be seeing you there again, and whenever the customers thin out, he slides you snacks. (Everyone noticed you got thinner, apparently.) But because you’re working all day, you have to conspire with Futaba—who you’ll now owe a year’s supply of instant yakisoba—to pick something up, and there’s no time to come up with something that would be enough.

You’re not even sure if it’s okay to ask to see Ryuji today, and as the hours wear on, the café gets way busier than usual, and you barely get to think until it’s almost closing time. But then the bell at the door chimes one last time, and—

“Hey.”

Sojiro glances between the two of you and smirks. “I’m going to head out. I’ll let you close up.”

You and Ryuji are silent as he takes off his apron, puts on his jacket, and heads out. The bell chimes again as he leaves, and you try to shake yourself, get your hands moving.

“I’ll get you a soda.”

“Thanks.”

Ryuji takes off his jacket, slides into a booth. You take your time, fix yourself a coffee, pour something carbonated and overly sweet. Ryuji scrolls through his phone in the quiet. When you sit down across from him, you still have no idea where to start, but you know you have to try.

“So—”

“I’m not pissed, if that’s what you were thinkin’.”

You look up, surprised. Ryuji’s looking uncharacteristically serious.

“I know why you did what you did. I know you didn’t tell me ‘cause—I woulda tried to stop you. Or take the heat for you.”

You nod, and you stare down into your coffee.

“Look, I get that maybe I woulda fucked it up, but you didn’t have to—”

“I didn’t think you were going to fuck up anything,” you blurt out. “I just needed to protect you.”

Ryuji takes a long drink of his soda at that.

“It was the only way to protect everyone,” you reiterate. “And they already knew I was the leader. They had my confession—kind of.”

“You didn’t have to protect me,” Ryuji says quietly. “I knew what I was choosin’ going after Shido. And—”

“You didn’t deserve all this shit, Ryuji. None of you did. I wasn’t going to bring it down on you again.”

“Are you for real? They straight up _tortured_ you and you went right back—”

“So what, I was supposed to have you walk into that?”

“I would’ve gone with you, man,” Ryuji says softly. “You know I would have.”

You sigh. “Then there would’ve just been two of us locked up. In solitary. It wouldn’t have helped.”

Ryuji pushes away his glass. “I get that. It’s why I’m not pissed, but…I wish you woulda told me anyway.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, man. I…I’m with you all the way, all in, all right? I don’t want you to carry any of this shit on your own. And you can’t—you can’t protect me by hurting yourself instead. ‘Cause that just…sucks even worse.”

You fix your eyes on his face as he bats the soda glass between his restless hands. “Yeah,” you say. “I think I get it.”

“It’s the same for you, yeah?”

“It is.” You fold your hands on the tabletop in front of you, take a breath. “I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you. I was just—scared.”

“For real? What were you scared of?”

You look down at your hands, smile only halfway. “I guess I was scared—that if I really talked to you, if I asked to see you, then I wouldn’t go through with it.”

When you glance up, Ryuji’s smiling, all the way. “Because you love me, right?”

“What?”

“It’s cool, Akira. I love you, too.”

Your face is so hot you feel you might faint and your hands are trembling on the table, so you pull them into your lap, just as Ryuji’s reaching for you.

“Whoa—look, I didn’t mean to freak you out. It’s Valentine’s Day, right? Like, it’s the day to say this stuff—and I brought some chocolate, if you, uh, want—but maybe not if—”

“I can’t fucking believe,” you groan, “that you beat me to it again.” And before he can beat you to another punch, you get up, storm behind the counter, and pull up a giant can of chocolate protein powder.

“I know you’re not really into sweets, so it’s symbolically chocolate,” you say. “Happy Valentine’s Day, you fast asshole. God only knows why I love you.”

Ryuji grins and saunters over to the counter, striking a pose. “It’s gotta be these guns, right?”

You groan again. “I hate to admit it, but it is a factor.”

“I _knew_ all the push-ups would pay off.”

“I thought you were trying to get Ann to notice.”

Ryuji snorts. “Ann only notices Shiho. And besides—I’m not…I mean, Ann’s hot, and I still like girls. But it’s kinda been about you for a while.”

And with that, he pulls out a clear container of chocolate truffles, round and powdered—only one is colored bright red.

“Russian chocolate?”

“You know at the school festival, when you yelled about Ann? I kinda…figured it out then.”

You raise an eyebrow. “That I was using Ann to deflect from my extremely gay feelings for you?”

Ryuji rubs the back of his neck. “That I was wishin’ you woulda confessed someone different.”

“Seriously? In front of the school?”

He blushes. “It’s not like they don’t think we’re total delinquents anyway!”

“Maybe you should make an announcement, then.”

“Dude, that’s not—” Ryuji sighs. “Look, are we gonna eat chocolate and make out or what?”

“Let me lock up and we’ll skip to phase two of that plan.”

“Nice.”

You do make out—clumsily, laughing at yourselves, until you figure it out and then it’s a _lot_ , so you eat curry together instead and play Star Forneus, at which point Ryuji realizes you’ve been letting him win and insists on showing you YouTube videos about “supernatural occurrences” instead. By the time the last train comes and goes, he’s sprawled next to you on the bed and no one has actually seen a ghost, but Ryuji has been laughing until his eyes tear up, and now you can just kiss him casually whenever he does that, so it’s pretty much the best day of your life yet.

He falls asleep on _your_ shoulder, this time, and his snoring puts you right to sleep.

Once you’re headed back from Tokyo, you’ve only kissed one boy, but a _lot_ of times. And you’ve already decided the first order of business is to turn right back around and continue, as soon as you can convince your parents that you belong in a musty attic about a million times more than you’ve ever belonged with them. But until then, there’s the road trip, Futaba and Yusuke fighting tooth and nail over the music as Ann determinedly cranks her playlist, Morgana sunning himself on Haru’s lap, and Makoto at the wheel sneaking a smile at all you through the rearview. Ryuji’s arm around your shoulder.

The sun is shining, and you’re not sure everything will work out, but you already got everything you wanted.


End file.
